I'm a former banker turned venture capitalist, musician and over-committed volunteer. My firm, T2 Venture Creation, is dedicated to building great start up companies, and leading the buildout of the ecosystems that cause them. My role is Chief Strategy Officer. I am deeply interested in how we learn about ourselves and the world, and how that learning translates into innovative business and educational leadership. I have an abiding curiosity about English Literature, physics, computing, and the Humanities in general. I also serve as Executive-in-Residence for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UNC Charlotte, where I indulge my interest in pedagogy, graduate studies in Early Modern Literature, and opining. And I'm a singer-songwriter wannabe.

Three Roadblocks To Innovation

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight. — Goethe, The Maxims and Reflections

Suppose innovation is on your mind today. Suppose further that you are puzzled by the capacity — or lack thereof — for your organization to be innovative, or to act in innovative ways. And suppose a little further still that you really and truly want to understand both what it is that makes for innovative cultures and just how your organizational culture stacks up against that understanding. And, lastly, let’s suppose that you are prepared to be deeply and profoundly honest with yourself.

If all these assumptions are true, here’s a suggested path for you to consider.

Over the next month or so, set aside some time to wander around your organization, to do a walkabout. Make this a daily habit, and make it random, as random as you can possibly make it. Start dropping in on folks, unannounced, and just inviting them to talk with you. Don’t have an agenda. Don’t have an outcome. Make it clear that your conversation is open, flexible and focused solely on things that are of interest and concern to the person with whom you are talking. Then, once you get started, start listening. Listen deeply. Listen for what the person is trying to say, not their words. Listen for the truth of their speaking. Remind yourself that you are seeking insight. Don’t think at all about what you are going to do as a result of conversation; think only about how you might be different after your conversations. If you do this carefully and with integrity and personal honesty, you might hear some or all of the following. And what you hear, and the insights that follow from that hearing, may very well provide you with a deep understanding of what’s missing, both in your organization and in you.

Trust: The foundation of operational efficiency is trust. It’s probably meaningful, irrespective of accuracy, to assume that there is a direct correlation between trust as a cultural value, and productivity. The absence of trust fuels a constant, deep, profound headwind against optimal contribution.

So, keep this thought in mind as you listen to folks during your “innovation walkabout”: Imagine a key player in your organization has just experienced a big failure of some kind — a project that didn’t work out as expected, a missed performance goal, a deadline not achieved — really anything that is more or less public. Imagine the degree to which her productivity has diminished while recovering energy, confidence and focus. It is likely — maybe certain — that post-failure of any kind, productivity is lower and commitment is compromised. Now, think about “recovery.” The route to “redemption” in the face of any failure is grounded in trust — trust in colleagues that a failure is understood; trust that peers and co-workers will see failure in the proper context, and welcome continued risk-tolerance; trust that co-workers still trust, after a failure. The ramp up to full commitment, full productivity after failure is faster in the presence of trust; in its absence, fully ramping up to pre-failure levels of commitment may never happen.

If we think of trust as games and afterthoughts, what will we get in return?

Does your conversation hint at this? Do you hear unspoken words that address the absence of trust? Behind all the words you are hearing — maybe institutional buzz words or phrases, culturally supported slogans, and restatements of the “company line” — you will hear commentary on trust, in some fashion. Listen carefully, and then give an honest appraisal by asking this question: “Have I just had a conversation that is grounded in trust?”

Win/Lose: One of the great mysteries of organizations is the dualistic culture of incentives and expectations. In your walkabout innovation conversations, listen for language that addresses this strange feature of most systems. It goes something like this: There is an organizational party line that likely preaches something about the value of everyone working toward a shared, corporate goal. There is an assumption, both spoken and unspoken, that the reason everyone belongs to an organization is to further the goals of that organization. That’s one side of the duality. The other side is the reality.

As you listen to random conversations, listen for what is said (if unspoken) about incentives — that is, incentives that are inclusive of financial reward systems, extra-rational motivations, policies and any other features that influence behavior. If you listen deeply what you will likely find is that everything — and it may not be overstating the case to say “everything” — folks are asked to do in your organization operates at some level counter to someone else. Someone is going to win, only when someone else loses.

Think of this example: Suppose you have a bonus pool of finite dollars, which is probably more or less true, since bonus pools are rarely infinite. If that is true in your organization, no one can win without someone else losing. Anyone who is going to receive a bonus can only receive something that someone else doesn’t. In this case, the incentive is decidedly win/lose, and the incentive is to never, ever help someone else achieve a bonus. You won’t likely hear anyone say this directly in a conversation, and in fact you may hear the exact opposite (if you listen only to words). What you might hear is some variation of incentivizing producers over non-producers, or rewarding excellence, or recognizing high achievers . . . something along those lines. But listen carefully, especially where you are hearing positive sounds about incentives. The real conversation is about what is not encouraged by incentives: collaboration, mentoring, sharing, supporting.

Very likely, if you are listening honestly to your conversations, you will be hearing conflict: the very real conflict between the values your organization is promoting, and the reality inside of which everyone operates on a daily basis. And that deep conflict is the friction between wanting to be in a “win/win” world and actually living in a “win/lose” world.

Risk: Everyone loves a risk-taker . . . as long as they don’t fail. Risk that fuels achievement can only really be encouraged in cultures that are deeply trusting and deeply grounded in win/win thinking. As you are in conversation, listen for the real point of view being expressed about risk. Is risk in your organization seen as something that is valued, but only for the lucky? Is risk accompanied by failure seen as a negative, or a learning opportunity? Are the folks you are talking with growing as mindful, accountable risk-takers? Or are they learning the value of risk aversion? This conversation is the trickiest of all, because how individuals and organizations perceive and operate inside of risk is all mixed up with trust and win/win and many other value systems. What you are looking for is insight that addresses cultural inclinations to risk personally on behalf of the organization, rather than hold back in fear.

There is a world of difference between saying “risk more!” and building an organizational and cultural infrastructure that supports risk-taking; a world of difference between encouraging collaborative work and operating in incentive systems that reward the opposite; a world of difference between a highly efficient, trusting culture and one that only trusts on the surface. If you do an “innovation walkabout,” and you look only for insight into these difficult value sets, you may very well be rewarded with a clear, but deeply disappointing, picture of your organization. If so, congratulations! You are now in a position to take powerful action toward creating and nurturing innovative values, and that is a great place to be. And if you are in that fortunate place, you will likely have two immediate questions: 1) How do I go from insight to measurement? and 2) How do I go from measurement to action?

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Nice article! “INNOVATION” with intelligent risks…..work! “Creating Customer Value” in my humble opinion has become the new “INNOVATION”, the advancement in technology will support this “Value” and in searching will that precipitate “Risks”? Perhaps. Thanks for the post! http://www.slideshare.net/aharrell2000/indifference-versus-satisfaction-marketing-strategy www.ah2andbeyond.com

Thanks Henry for sharing this article. I am associated with a global R&D Organization for many years now. I think in the first place the “R” and “D” must be able to work in tandem. This is biggest challenge on the ground. One of the key obstacles is a “silo mentality”. I had taken considerable efforts to bring the researchers and engineers to network. The second notion is that inventions equals IP. We had organized training session to dispel this misconstrued idea. The third is the lack of a strategic approach to consolidate on others ideas.A focused group discussion can help solve this problem.